National Blog

Buchanan: State of the Union Congress Must Vote Before Iraq War III

In his column today, Pat Buchanan lays out the pitfalls of Obama's latest military action in Iraq and joins Campaign for Liberty in calling for President Obama to seek congressional approval for any further military action in Iraq. Read Buchanan's column here and excerpts below.

The proper limits of Presidential power will be one of the subjects discussed at LPAC 2014, if you have not already, get your tickets today!

The questions Congress needs to answer are obvious and numerous.

Who exactly is our enemy? ISIS only, or Assad, Hezbollah and Iran as well? Will our involvement be restricted to air power—fighter-bombers, gunships, cruise missiles, drones? Or should the president be authorized to send U.S. ground troops to fight? If we are to be restricted to air power, is it to be confined to Iraq, or can it be used in Syria—and against Assad as well as ISIS?

If U.S. combat troops cannot be used, what are the prospects of expelling ISIS from Iraq? And if we should drive them out, what is the probability they will come back as soon as we leave, especially if we have left them in control of northern Syria? Is annihilation of ISIS the only permanent solution? How long and bloody a war would that require?

Will the president be authorized to coordinate war planning with Tehran? And if Assad is to become our de facto ally, should we end our support for the Free Syrian Army and negotiate an armistice and amnesty for the FSA?

Congress must be forced to debate and vote on this war, first, so we can hold them accountable for what is to come. Second, so we can force them to come to consensus on just what kind of outcome in this region is acceptable, and attainable, and at what cost.

What will victory look like? What will be the cost in blood and treasure? How long are we prepared to fight this war, an end to which does not today seem to be anywhere in sight? How reasonable is it to expect that the Kurdish peshmerga and an Iraqi Army that fled Kirkuk, Fallujah, and Mosul, will be able to recapture the Sunni regions of Iraq?